By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he’ll have his fighter Manny Pacquiao go straight into a rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2016 if Pacquiao’s shoulder fully recovers from his shoulder surgery, and if Mayweather is willing to face him next year.
Arum won’t bother with a tune-up for Pacquiao to make sure his surgically repaired right shoulder will hold together. Arum says he wants Pacquiao to take the fight with Mayweather the first thing when he comes back.
Arum figures that a second fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao will still make three to four times the amount of money that Pacquiao could make from one of his normal fights that he’d match him up against.
Of course, Arum realizes that the Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch won’t make the kind of loot that their May 2nd fight made, because many boxing fans aren’t going to want to pay to see the two fighters face each other again. But Arum still sees a lot of fans wanting to see Mayweather and Pacquiao fight each other a second time.
“The money was so huge last time and I’m realistic to know it won’t be as big this time,” Arum said via RingTV.com “but it’d be three or four times as big to another fight these guys can do. I had Pacquiao winning seven to five.”
Arum had Pacquiao winning seven rounds to five, but pretty much everyone else had Mayweather winning handily. If Arum and trainer Freddie Roach’s plan is to create doubt in the decision for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, I don’t think it is working. Not enough people are listening to them, and the fans that are listening have already made up their mind that Pacquiao got schooled by Mayweather.
One thing that Arum is right about is him saying that the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight will make three to four times one of the regular fights. In Pacquiao’s case, it might be six or seven times the amount of money, because he’s not been making huge money for his fights against guys like Brandon Rios, Chris Algieri and Tim Bradley.
“If the rematch were available, I think we’d go right into a rematch,” Arum said. “If he was smart, I would think he’d look to do a rematch, and then one more.”
Wow, Arum wants Mayweather to fight Pacquiao two more times before he retires. In other words, Arum wants a trilogy.
If Arum can’t get a rematch for Pacquiao against Mayweather next year, then you can expect to see Arum match Pacquiao against WBO light welterweight champion Terence Crawford. Unfortunately for Arum and Pacquiao, it’s not a fight that would bring in huge PPV numbers because Crawford is a total unknown once you get out of the state of Nebraska, where he’s from. But Pacquiao will be doing Arum a huge favor in fighting Crawford because it will increase his value with Top Rank in the future. If I was Pacquiao, I’d tell Arum I only want to fight popular guys. Crawford is a waste of time for Pacquiao, but if Pacquiao said no to that fight, Arum wouldn’t have many other options but to put Pacquiao back in with Bradley, Rios or look to match him against Jessie Vargas if he defeats Bradley in their upcoming fight on June 27th. Those are all fights that would bring in next to no PPV buys for Pacquiao.
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